iPredict Column

Buy

QV.UP.SEPOCT09 pays out $1 if national property prices as valued by Quotable Value are higher in both September and October 2009, than a year ago. July saw them 5% negative and August 2.8% negative. The share price for this stock has been all over the place in September from a low of 16c on the 1st to 43c on the 4th, then down to 20c on the 7th and now back up to 34c today. With most commentators saying the recession is over, this stock may be worth a punt on. I wouldn’t invest money you can’t afford to lose, but a 200% return over two months is tempting.

Sell

iPredict launched OBAMA.DISAP.4NOV which will pay out $1 if President Obama’s disapproval rating exceeds his approval rating by the 4th of November. Over the last week and a bit it has declined from 25c to 15c. Obama’s net rating has fallen below 10% for the first time but I think it is very unlikely it will fall below 0% by the 4th of November. One can make an 18% return over seven weeks reasonably safely unless Obama stuffs up majorly.

MIN.DEPART2.09 pays out $1 if a second Minister, on top of Richard Worth, resigns or is sacked by the end of the year. After a couple of months at 50c it had dropped down to under 20c but on Monday spiked up to 24c. Does John Key know something we don’t, and was cashing in? As it is now mid September and there are no known issues about any Minister, it looks pretty unlikely to pay out. One can make a 25% return over 15 weeks, if the Ministers all behave.

Polls

The price for Labour going up in the next Roy Morgan poll is at 80c and for National going down at 75c. We’ll find out on Friday if National drops back from its record high or not.

Hottest Stocks

The petrol stocks have been the most traded stocks of the week. Almost 40,000 shares have been brought and sold in the last week in the 91.SEP09 series. Next most traded is the Recession.Jun09 stock which had 4,307 trades. The VSM.1STREAD stock has also been popular.

Cheers,

David

Disclosure

David’s current iPredict positions are:

BROWN.RESIGN Short, DL.KING.09 Short, FASA04.REPEAL Short, GST.UP.JULY10 Short, LEAD.GOFF.09 Short, MAYOR.BROWN Long, MIN.DEPART2.09 Short, MP.ANDERTON Short, MP.PETERS.2011 Short, NAT.MAORI.09 Short, OBAMA.DISAP.4NOV Short, OCR.INCR.APR10 Short, OCR.INCR.JAN10 Short, PETERS.LEADER Long, PM.2011.NATIONAL Long, VSM.1STREAD Long, ZIM.MUGABE Short

David’s opinions are not necessarily those of iPredict or its owners.